The types of electronic devices that are commercially available has increased tremendously the past few years and the rate of introduction of new devices shows no signs of abating. Electronic devices, such as tablet, laptop, netbook, desktop, and all-in-one computers, cell, smart, and media phones, storage devices, portable media players, navigation systems, monitors, and others, have become ubiquitous.
The amount of data transferred among these electronic devices has also grown. Large amounts of audio, streaming video, text, and other types of data content are now regularly transferred from one device to another. Power may be transferred with this data, though power may be transferred separately. Power and data may be conveyed over cables that may include wire conductors, fiber optic cables, or some combination of these or other conductors. Cable assemblies may include a connector insert at each end of a cable. The connector inserts may be inserted into connector receptacles in the communicating electronic devices to form pathways for power and data.
In some circumstances, a user may want to connect a device having a first type of receptacle to a cable having a plug that is designed to mate with a second type of receptacle. To do this, the user may need an adapter to form a communication path. An adapter may have a receptacle of the second type to accept the cable and a plug of the first type to mate with the user's device. These adapters may include more than one type of receptacle. A convenient form factor for such a device may be referred to as a dongle.
These dongles may be useful in that they may allow different types of devices to connect to a host using a single receptacle on the host. But a user may connect or disconnect these devices to and from the dongle from time to time. Various problems may arise as these connections and disconnections occur.
Thus, what is needed are circuits, methods, and apparatus to counteract one or more of the various issues that may arise when a user connects or disconnects a device through such a dongle or adapter to a host.